Tulsa Police Union: 'We Feel Every Effort Has Been Exhausted'

By Emory Bryan, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- The City of Tulsa and the Tulsa police union  met Thursday for talks but ended the meeting with no substantial progress on restoring jobs for 89 laid off police officers. 

The two sides have a substantial disagreement over the length of the contract that's pending.

The FOP and the City are negotiating over salary concessions for both the current contract year and for the next year.  The union wants to negotiate changes to the current contract and separately negotiate changes for the next year.  The city wants one deal that would run through June 30th of 2011.

While both the city and the union have traded multiple offers back and forth, so far both sides have rejected all of them. 

2/26/2010 Related Story: City Of Tulsa Rejects FOP's Latest Offer To Rehire Laid Off Officers

A spokesperson for the police union said after the meeting that "We feel that every effort has been exhausted."  The city has not responded to a request for comment.

The city of Tulsa laid off 124 police officers in January.  But money from a federal grant allowed 35 of them to be re-hired late last month. 

Those 35 officers were sworn in on Monday.

Full Tulsa FOP Statement:

The FOP regrets that our latest contract proposal to bring our officers back was not accepted by City management. Our main goal has been to come to a quick resolution to restore police protection to the levels the families of Tulsa expect and deserve

The FOP has submitted proposals to reduce our pay and benefits for the rest of the fiscal year which we felt were fair and reasonable, and that required the officers to carry the full financial burden. In the FOP's last offer, we proposed reducing our pay by $1.8 million dollars, which the City management previously set as a goal to reach, from their budget for the next 4 months.  That proposal would have allowed officers to be rehired. Management has now rejected that proposal saying it was $400,000 short of their projected goal.  Instead of accepting the offer and hiring most of the officers back and then working to find other solutions, management rejected the entire proposal without submitting any counter proposal.  We feel that every effort has been exhausted and that if management does not like the FOP's proposal we cannot force them to use our $1.8 million to hire back police officers and increase the protection for the families of Tulsa.

The FOP will remain focused on the main goal: providing professional service and safety to the men women, and children of Tulsa. We are hoping to hear from the Mayor's office with a counter proposal. We will remain diligent in finding a solution and hopeful that a common ground will be reached soon.